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Man Booted From Southwest Flight and Threatened With Arrest After Critical Tweet
CanHasDIY writes The old saying goes, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." A man learned the consequences Sunday, after Tweeting about his experience with a rude Southwest gate attendant: "A Minnesota man and his two sons were asked to leave a Southwest Airlines flight after the man sent a tweet complaining about being treated rudely by a gate agent. Duff Watson said he was flying from Denver to Minneapolis on Sunday and tried to board in a spot for frequent flyer privileges he held and take his sons, ages 6 and 9, with him, even though they had a later spot to board the plane. The agent told him that he would have to wait if he wanted to board with his children. Watson replied that he had boarded early with them before and then sent out a tweet that read 'RUDEST AGENT IN DENVER. KIMBERLY S. GATE C39. NOT HAPPY @SWA.' Watson told TV broadcaster KARE in Minneapolis on Wednesday that after he boarded, an announcement came over the plane asking his family to exit the aircraft. Once at the gate, the agent said that unless the tweet was deleted, police would be called and the family would not be allowed back onboard." He gave into the threat, deleted the Tweet, and was allowed to board a later flight. Southwest, as one could have predicted, offered a boilerplate "apology" and vouchers.
thats harassment.. she should have called the police
Kimberly sure sounds like a cunt.
LOL, "American Freedom"!
So any online criticism of any company has to be a "happy" criticism? The "truth" is no longer welcome? What a screwed up world.
Pulling a family off a flight and threatening to summon the police seems pretty intense. They must have done something very bad. What? One of them tweeted about poor customer service before entering the aircraft? That's it?
Did the SWA agent seriously think that threatening the family with not being able to fly and reporting the man to the police (for what?) unless he deleted the tweet would be the end of it? Did the agent think the whole thing would be erased from everyone's memory and it would be as if nobody complained? That's not the way it works. Now everyone in her management chain knows who she is, and not in a good way. Creating a PR incident like this will not go without notice. It's a variant of the Streisand effect.
It's not important to the story, but at least one airline I've flown has figured out that it's good customer service to allow people who spend a lot of money travelling on their airline have their children treated to the same boarding privilege - especially as it costs the airline nothing to do so.
Why do people with kids assume that they can do anything they want?
Sure, Southwest overreacted to criticism, but the fault lies with the passenger, not the airline.
// TODO: Add comments
This man, his sons, and the agent should be put on the next flight to the Middle East. Plainly that's where they belong. With a little help, this relatively minor dispute can, in time, blossom into a conflict of global proportions. Now, why would I want that to happen, you say? Well, portfolio of military-industrial companies of course. So have at it Kiberly and Mr. Minessota. I need to sell some bombs so I can get a bigger yacht.
How did Southwest find out about this tweet?
Do they have a team of people sitting around watching a Twitter feed, so that if anyone mentions Southwest they can pounce?
If so, good job guys! You really saved the day here. SWA stock is going to go up tomorrow for sure! :^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Boycott SWA! I, for one, will never patronage Southwest again, after giving them my business twice in the past three months.
is that southwest initially refused to let the frequent flyer take his two small children with him to board, and instead told him to (give up his frequent flyer perk and) board later with them ... or worse, separate himself from children aged 6 and 9? what the flying fuck? and trust an airline, an industry that loses literally tons of luggage each year, with getting his children on the plane without the father present). i thought airlines wanted passengers with children on the plane first because it takes them longer to settle into their seats than adult travelers?
Lets hunt down that cunt Kimberley S. andmake her life hell. I fucking hate bitch cunts.
They must be the whiniest little shits, if they're anything like their dad...
Asking customers or others to leave a business has put way too much power in the hands of people unable to handle it. Situations like this deserve a court hearing. At times it may even be in opposition to the Americans With Disabilities Act. For example a stroke victim or a person suffering a mental condition may exhibit unpopular behaviors as a direct consequence of their condition just a Turret's syndrome might cause cursing or obscene utterances. Businesses as well as individuals have to suffer the effects just as the person who bears the illness suffers the effects. Depending upon who is doing the looking even drunken or drug induced behaviors may be a disability. We can not have a pretense that the behavior of an ill person is somehow not part of that person as control is often beyond any abilities that they may have to resist the behaviors. As long as they are non violent I can't see any business denying them access.
Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. But this immediate rush to blame/defend lets rumors fly around while the truth takes its time.
problem solved
Wouldn't Southwest calling the police be considered wasting police time? and isn't that an offence?
Police were going to be called if he didn't delete the tweet? What were they going to do, arrest him on grounds of slander?
story. Don't all of you sheep realize that stories like this are posted in this fashion just to get your panties in a bunch so that you'll post irate comments and then keep coming back for more? You're being manipulated here and you're oh so willing to take it because you just enjoy being outraged/offended.
Here's a quote from that very thin story:
"Our decision was not based solely on a customer's tweet," it said, adding it offered the customer vouchers as a gesture of goodwill.
So do you think perhaps there's more to it than this self-serving outrage-inducing article is letting on?
After all, he committed several unforgivable sins in a police state:
1. Being critical of authority
2. Having an opinion about authority, instead of accepting it as god-like
3. Communicating said opinion
I see sedition, inciting violence and refusing to let proper authority mishandle him. Of course, if he let them call the police, he would probably have been shot.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
For those who don't know, boarding order is critical on Southwest. You don't get a seat assignment, its first-come-first-serve, like riding a bus, once you get on the plane.
You get a boarding pass with A 1 thru 60, B 1 thru 60, or C 1 thru 60 and everyone boards in that order. The A people get great seats and C people get crap (center seats, back of the plane, no seats together for people traveling together, etc).
Frequent fliers get to skip ahead board between A and B groups (assuming they didn't have and A anyway) which still has lots of good seats free. Families traveling with children 4 or under also get to board before the B group (so they can get seats together).
This guy probably had high number B or C tickets and wanted to use his "A-list" frequent flier status to board early and get 3 seats together with his kids. But his kids didn't have "A-list" status and where too old to qualify for family boarding so they would have wait for their high boarding number to get on the plane.
this is news worthy for slashdot.org?
I would have made a 2nd tweet that Southwest threatened police intervention due to the 1st tweet then asked for the city police (not the airport police)
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Hey USAmericans! How it feels living in a totalitarian state?
Please remember: "The land of the free", and wake up!
I'd have told SWA "Go ahead and call the cops. You'll hear from my lawyer."
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Every time I fly Southwest, their people are energetic and happy. They are probably the best in the business, probably a class unto themselves. This guy however, with what information has been let out, had to be extreme. I'd "luv" to hear what other passengers thought of his behavior!
... isn't that extortion?
my guess is that things were not as one sided as this story leads to believe.
just because a passenger is a customer that should be treated with respect does NOT mean that the passenger doesn't have to follow crewmember instructions. if the passenger was being particularly difficult because he had his two snowflakes in tow and did not want to abide by Southwest's procedures, he should not be allowed on the plane.
given what's happened recently in aviation, one would think safety is important. safety shouldn't be shrugged off merely because a passenger whines when he doesn't get out of the ordinary preferential treatment.
airports are reduced rights zones after 9/11
For those not familiar, southwest boards everyone in 3 groups: A, B and C. Business class gets A 1-15 and A-List gets the early A's that are left. Southwest also has Pre-boarding for the handicapped which boards before the A group. They also have Family Boarding which boards between the A and B group. There are plenty of seats left at this time for your family to all sit next to eachother.
to tweet her rudeness after you land.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
ie. their boarding system is utter shit to begin with.
A matter of opinion. It works very well if you pre-print your boarding passes 24 hours before departure time. I have *NEVER* had anything but A or B.
Southwest (who still does not charge for 2 checked bags) has always treated my wife and I well. We have traveled with our grand children many times.
If you know and follow the well established and well know rules for obtaining your boarding pass and boarding the jet, it's a very smooth process.
But on the other hand, if you're an "entitled power flyer", your asshole attitude will get you nowhere.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So gate-nazi butt-hurt is a security threat now?
story. Don't all of you sheep realize that stories like this are posted in this fashion just to get your panties in a bunch so that you'll post irate comments and then keep coming back for more? You're being manipulated here and you're oh so willing to take it because you just enjoy being outraged/offended..
Yes, you are correct.
:-)
But I point out that you are grazing here too, in the role of "observer too clever to take the bait, who then takes the meta-bait so he can make his observation and feel superior."
I would fall into that category too, except I preemptively offer that I'm no better than you.
out of many concern (from security to simply have quiet kids) most airline I know simply make either priority boarding of children with the FF, or make sure the children are seatted together with the parents (even in charters).
I guess it gets trumped by corporate rights and power.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Kids aren't frequent flyers dude was being a douche and got less than he deserved
The internet is not your parents. Shit pisses you off and you cry about it online and then make a stink about it and expect to be treated like an adult? Really? What a shame faggots like this reproduce. They have no balls and what's worse aren't even men in a conscious sense. I feel bad for the little faggots this faggot is raising.
Cry me a river cause you and your brats aren't as special as you thought you were. The airline threatening and trying to revoke his ticket was BS too. Both parties are acting like complete asses. SW should have took the high road and ignored the comment or tweeted about it in an attempt to clarify policy and or satisfy a whining customer.
One rude agent, going to far to play the d-bag. Hope he gets fired.
I guess that's one way to silence your critics.
I (an American) just went on a vacation where I entered Russia, then France, then Russia, then the US on my way home. It went like this:
Russia: "What plane did you get off of?" "OK, [stamp]"
France: "Welcome! [stamp]"
Russia: "Welcome back, Tovarish! [stamp]"
US: "Spread 'em, Cocksucker. What's this in your bag? Get in this line - no, the other line! Papers, please! Is this your family? Who packed your suitcase? Look into the camera. Make your wife look into the camera. Submit to bacterial scanning. Put your bags in the X-Ray machine and leave them there until they start to smoke. OK, Meatwad, we'll let you in, but consider this a warning!"
This place has gotten so xenophobic it's silly.
Its actually written in the rules: if you, the person with the medallion status, are the one booking the flight and are also traveling then everyone in your booking gets the same privileges as you would traveling alone. Early boarding, upgrade eligibility, etc. Its a normal rule with all airlines.
Intercom: "You are now free to get the fuck off mah plane."
We also would have accepted:
Intercom: "You are not free to tweet about our customer service."
If there was any good chance of a reasoning being on the other end of her call to the police, it would have been worth it to let her call and then have the LEO "explain" to her the (unfortunately rare) consequences of filing a false complaint, then watching HER be arrested for disrupting the flight. As it is, of course, ...
So do you think perhaps there's more to it than this self-serving outrage-inducing article is letting on?
Yes, and not just because I've had to deal with pricks who threaten to go to the papers when I refuse to give them free upgrades just because they've been loyal customers five years longer than the company has been trading.
I'm sorry if this makes me prejudiced, but when faced by someone who threatens to tell Twitter when they don't get what they demand I'm inclined to treat them like a self-important ass.
not mentioned in TFS but reading between the lines of TFA, noisy asshole gets abusive to staff when they don't break the rules for him, staff react without company PR on hand for guidance.
seems like the guy is a complete tool trying to blackmail the staff.
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none
she was not rude so ef'em if he can't take it. He wanted special privileges for his two kids and did not want to board with them. Sorry Dick, the world does not revolve around you. Suck it up and STFU.
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yes, it would have been good for him to have been arrested for thinking he owned some sort of special rights above all the rest getting on his plane. Mr Special is an asshole for making a stink about this because he didn't get his way and have his kids move ahead of everyone else on the plane. Mr Special was told his only option was to board alone and let his kids find a spot or board with his kids. Poor baby wasn't happy with that.
In hindsight, it seems he should have been boarded as a sub 4 year old and then he and his older acting kids could have boarded together and earlier.
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So someone at swa is monitoring @swa mentions in realtime actively looking for disparaging tweets and also with a passenger list AND their twitter handle and when said tweets come in has the authority to hotline a gate to hold a plane based on said tweet alone? i mean how else did this plane not already take off? I just dont get the whole timing - good to know i can ground some random plane in california from my couch in missouri
Who the hell would have seen this tweet other than Southwest Airlines and whatever motley crew actually follows the perp / victim's account? Is there any chance at all this would have impacted SWA if they hadn't decided to take this into meatspace? Like "man criticizes SWA on twitter, picked up by wire services and Daily Show, stock price in freefall (no pun intended)."?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
UAL used to be pretty good, so was Continental. But now that they've merged, and pushed lots of stuff off to regional jet carriers, it has gotten pretty bad.
I think its fair, I mean i wouldnt board a plane where a passenger and a crew member where feuding. What if it escalated rapidly while at 30,000 feet?
Kept waiting for the punch line until I realized there wasn't one. Anyone who abuses their position to pull a stunt like this deserves to be fired.
You have to be a complete moron to believe the story as told.
How much you want to bet that the guy was just an a-hole and made up the entire twitter story.
I'm a frequent business traveller. It's interesting to note how fewer and fewer airline staff wear name tags, or if they do they just say "Flight Attendant."
Compare that with the tags in hotels, where they usually state the name, and often the staffer's home town.
Not an option in the mathematically challenged US of A where explaining "every other", even numbers, odd numbers would take all the allotted time.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I guess they let him know, too. Very interesting. I think it's good to be honest, though, it's not like that was much of a bad post.
Not really likely, right?
So logically, the agent had to be informed that the passenger was making his angry tweet, which, as you imply, the passenger was actually using the tweet to blackmail the agent into bending the rules for him.
I think it is very key, and very telling that this is not addressed in the story. There is no way for Southwest employees at that gate to have known this guy tweeted anything, without the passenger informing of it, and once we get to that obvious fact, to what end was he doing this? The obvious reason is to intimidate the agent he felt was "rude" - which seems rather petulant.
Now it gets more interesting if you start to wonder if there was a reason why the agent threatened to call the police on this guy... was it an overreaction, or was this passenger just being such an incredibly overbearing, pompous ass in his blackmail attempt, that the agent felt threatened? It might be that they never requested him to remove the tweet, but were instead responding to his petulant tantrum.
I can easily see it playing out that he was informed he needed to calm down and back off or they would call security. We only have his word that they threatened to have him arrested, and that he had to remove the tweet... it seems more reasonable, knowing this passenger intended to intimidate the agents, that he was in a threatening posture, and realizing he was about to get a royal TSA probing, "calmed down" and offered to remove his tweet as a gesture - all the while plotting to tell the story we see presented here, in all of its one-sided glory.
I hate to side either way on this story, but I'm more inclined, given this key missing item of the story, to believe that the "more to this story" involved the passenger being a LOT more in the wrong than the gate agent.
Of course SW's reaction shouldn't have been what it was (full-out spiteful), but the thought of calling someone out by name on the internet makes me cringe. To me--though I concede I might have spent too much time on a certain imageboard--you should only post somebody's full name or any other personal information if you're prepared to see that person burn in digital fire. We shouldn't underestimate how harmful it can be to have something critical said about someone on the internet. While Mr. Duff's complaint was valid and the reaction by the airline was wrong, I don't think he went through the proper channels to file a personal grievance. Employees have supervisors and managers for just this reason. I'm fine with complaining about whole companies online, or but sniping individuals can be incredibly injurious to their careers and lives. It's just not something I'd do, maybe I'm in the wrong.
What first amendment rights were violated? I'm absolutely serious about this; please point to any violation of first amendment rights anywhere in here.
While you do so, remember that the first amendment restricts the actions of the *government* - that is, it prohibits the making of laws that do certain things - and has absolutely nothing to do with the private sector. Here, let me quote it for you (emphasis mine):
So, which law did SWAirlines cause Congress to pass that violated these people's first amendment rights? Go on, point it out please.
Or were you just mouthing off about stuff you don't understand, trying to get people riled up about an issue that doesn't even exist? Because that... well, let's just say it speaks volumes about your intelligence (and that of the person who modded you up). Volumes that I doubt you would ever read, since apparently you can't be bothered to read (or at least, understand) one of the most important *sentences* ever committed to text in the history of this nation...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Entitled jerk-face acts like a whiny bitch and gets tossed from a flight? I'm not sure I see the problem here.
Oh wait, I do. It's that we as a people have become so uppity that if we don't get our way we act like petulant children, and cry and moan and stomp our feet so the whole world can see.
I applaud SWA for being so in tune with Twitter that they could take action so quickly. They should go all the way an ban this crybaby from all future flights.
One thing that was included in the article was that he named the gate agent in the tweet. That pretty much proves your theory that his intent was intimidation. Given how easy it is to convince stupid assholes on the internet to stalk some random stranger with death threats, I'm not all that sure it was an overreaction.
If it was as he described, his best reaction would be to tell them to go ahead and call the cops, which would have proved that the gate agent doesn't have the authority to do so, and determine whether or not their supervisor was an idiot.
First World Problem
This isn't police state stuff, because Southwest Airlines is not a police organization but a private corporation. It was not the TSA that pulled them off the plane either. If the police had been called and arrived I don't think they would have done anything or could have done anything based on the tweets alone.
I've used South West Airlines for more than 3 decades. Unless the people responsible for kicking off an unhappy passenger are corrected in public, I will no longer include South West Airlines in my travel plans, nor will I authorize use of their services for my employees.
When I have an unhappy customer, I don't demand they delete their rant, I ask them how I can fix it for them. Sometimes it's not what I'd like to do, but it is what I must do to make my customer happy. I never have, and I never will ask a customer to remove a negative comment. I will ask what can I do to make this right, and if there is any way I can meet the expectation, I will.
#Eyes on YOU SWA
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars
IANAL, but from a layman's perspective it looks like a breach of contract. A more sue-happy person might have taken that incident to court.
C - the footgun of programming languages
The reason the agent and airline got upset and took action isn't that he complained, or that he complained on twitter. If he had tweeted "Southwest Airlines is Horrible", things would've gone down differently. It's the fact that he identified the employee by her full name in his angry tweet. We're all slashdotters here, so don't even try to play ignorant about how badly that can turn out. You don't have a right to out a human's real name on twitter and try to draw the ire of the internet down on them just because you're pissed off about boarding policy.
It should be very clear from portions of my post such as "To be frank, none of us here really know enough about the situation" that I was discussing things in general terms.
Did I need it to put in it red bold blinking script to avoid being used as your strawman?
Must agee, this guy's an A-lister alright, as in A-Ahole. Don't make personal criticisms of airline personal who are following the rules. Save the criticism for people who are NOT following the rules.
If she were the owner, rather than an employee, I believe she should have every right to refuse service to him for any reason whatsoever, maybe a refund would be in order, but when you're a company owner and the government is already telling you who you need to serve, even if they are completely obnoxious... that's not fair.
1. Jumped the queue - this is a mortal sin in England. He had a higher priority ticket, but his kids did not, yet he thought his kids could jump the queue;
2. Blamed another for failing to satisfy his sense of entitlement - in particular, used "rudest" to describe the person who corrected his bad behaviour, rather than apologising for himself being rude;
3. Let the world know just how much he was projecting his own guilt. Twitter is not a group of friends or even the local chapter of a gun club - it is a worldwide publishing platform. It doesn't matter how easy it is to use - that's still what it is;
4. Using this global publishing platform, directly name the target of your projection - which, for the irrational way he's been behaving so far, could have been you or me;
5. Has an entirely parochial understanding of labour relationships. Any decent employer is highly protective of its employees and will terminate a business relationship if it finds that a customer is mistreating them. Sensible service providers even include specific wording in contracts to this effect. Yet he's surprised when arbitrarily bad-mouthing specific employees by name on a global publishing platform is regarded as grounds to refuse service;
6. Not content with all of the above, he then whines to mainstream media that his "right" to be an ass and spout nonsense in public was called into question.
I would love to know what the story of the SW Airlines employees/agents would be. Most people here appear to have judged based on one side of the argument, and ought never to sit on a jury (IAALS, fwiw). The furore was such that SW's best bet would be to cut their losses and fold, as the Angry Fat Middle Age White Family Guy always wins in the court of American public opinion.
WTF is wrong with Americans ?
The TSA trying to turn the whole country into one giant prison, the NSA/CIA etc. snopping in on everything you do, cops shooting people without cause, cops throwing people out of wheelchairs, cops shooting dogs, total and utter corruption of your political process etc. etc.... Now companies coming down all third reich/Stasi style because someone dares criticise them.
The idea of America is dead. It now resembles nothing more than something like the old DDR crossed with Mussolinis Italy but with less style.
What a bunch of po faced, humourless panty waist, bully boy, fascists you have become.
Who was monitoring twitter and escalated it to the point where they kicked someone off the plane? Knowing most Southwest flights, this all is in a 10-15 minute window. Now that part doesn't make sense... or is kind of creepy.
I rather like the idea of an incompetent ideologically driven gaggle of idiots in government outsourcing the Gestapo to private industry. Has MSNBC blamed Bush yet?
> Southwest, as one could have predicted, offered a boilerplate "apology" and vouchers.
I can see the apology now: "sorry you didn't like our service, here's some more."
> Southwest, as one could have predicted, offered a boilerplate "apology" and vouchers.
I can imagine the apology: "sorry you didn't like our service, here's some more."
Man acts like idiot, person with no power enforces the rules as required. Man rants like a little child attempting to damage airline's reputation when the airline did the right thing to begin with. Airline than acts like idiots by forcing man to retract tweet. I'd call it even. I'm no fan of companies forcing people to retract statements to continue to receive services, but too often people are going off on companies that aren't doing anything wrong. That's what makes online rating services worthless. End user reports simply are not reliable as the ones most likely to report are the most unreliable reporters.
Line jumpers always are. They don't give a shit about anyone else.
That's it folks. Enjoy the way the future unfolds for you. And remember, you asked for it.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Couldn't read all of the comments but minutes after tweeting, somehow SWA found out about it...Is SWA working with NSA to scan for bad remarks about them?
Interesting that it was only minutes after the tweet the family was taken off of the plane due to that tweet. How did SWA find out about it so fast? Heck, if I tried to call SWA, it would probably take a couple minutes of being on hold until I first talked to a live person.
Southwest's Facebook page is filled with people bickering about the incident - one side calling SW bad names and the other defending the agent's actions.
I'm sure that is not the sort of traffic SW wants filling their page. I expect this guy will get some kind of free lifetime perk, the agent will be sent for niceness training, and SW corporate will apologize profusely.
I also wouldn't be surprised if some sleazy lawyers reach out to the guy to go after SW.
Where are the pictures of Kimberly?
SWA shouldn't have reacted the way they did to be sure....reacting to a tweet of any type is a sure way to draw bad attention, and any sane person knws this.
That said, usually the way it works (since I fly SWA round trip once a week for other work), it is that if you have an A boarding group you board in that group, with the proviso that spouse and kids board in either the group on their card, or between A+B during family boarding (1 parent, and xx kids under 5) If the guy/gal was traveling alone with two under twelve kids, the kids obviously need to be with their parent. In this case, all the guy had to do was ask his fellow A travelers as a courtesy to bring his kiddos, and they would have let him to be sure, then if the gate agent got snippy, she would have faced all of them and likely not whined, no tweet needed. This rule is in place because otherwise you go to places like Orlando, and you get shoved out by a family of 5 and grandma, get no place to put your carry on (maybe missing a connection, or a meeting), even though only on in that group had an A. If you are on vacation, you have time to burn, but if traveling for work, you usually don't. Don't get me wrong, I love kiddos, and have given up my seat dozens of times for a parent and kids to sit together. When I am on vacation, my wife and any munchkins along board usually in B or C, I in A and save her and them seats. Acting nice begets nice.
He must have been shocked when he found out that there someone even more of an asshole than himself in existence.
I happen to be the executive who works at Southwest and made the decision, upon seeing the tweet, to call the gate and have him kicked off. Please allow me to explain my decision.
I work in the PR department, and managing publicity is my job. When I saw the tweet, I realized it was bad publicity. I don't like my company getting bad publicity, and I seek to avoid it, or replace it with good publicity.
So I threw our tweeting customer off, thereby solving the bad publicity problem! See? Now do you get it?
...
(Why is everyone looking at me like I'm a idiot?)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I went to tag this nerdrage story as slashdot's daily 2minutesofhate and couldn't find where to tag it anymore. Is that something they broke for slashdot beta?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I would sue the shit out of these assholes
A lot of the comments here seem to overlook one simple thing about this guy's tweet: He identified the flight attendant by name.
That's where the trouble came in at. Regardless of what anyone on these comments says, that's how it is. You just don't pull someone into the spotlight and start treating them like shit in front of others.
And then, two use the @SWA? of COURSE they're going to find out... you told them directly!
Bunch of idiots people can be when criticizing online.
Southwest policy appears to restrict entrance in this very specific case to JUST after all A-list passengers and before others. This is because his kids were older than 4 and NOT entitled to A-list boarding. If they were younger than 4, the hostess would be infringing policy. But she was actually enforcing policy strictly, doing her job as she is told to.
The real problem here is a conflict between the freedom of speech right and the defamation civil wrong (for which she can sue actually). I personally don't think there is real libel here, but some might argue that using the hostess's name on the tweet is reason enough for her to sue. What is impressive is the fact the guy had to go to the news after the incident to whine even more, and that gets me thinking he is a little more butthurt than he should for nothing important. He pretty much wanted the hostess fired from her job, which is her source of income. I think everybody gets defensive when their job is at stake. And all this for not indulging him in something he didn't have the right to, despite being "used to" have.
She wanted to avoided having defamation about her and the company wanted to avoid bad publicity. If the tweet was still up, he would have been left on the ground and he could be sued. If they let him fly without deleting the tweet, hostess would have been fired and both hostess and company could sue. This was the best scenario for both... Until he decided to strike back like a little girl. He could have never used the company again for the lack of poise but he just had to make the issue bigger. These are my two cents about it,
Seems they're covered. Publicly calling them out as rude, by specific name and location, seems to meet that criteria as intimidating.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
But are you actually proposing that a carrier of human cargo not be allowed to refuse service?
The idea isn't nearly as absurd as you make it sound. Regulated taxicabs in many cities are not allowed to refuse service - they must pick you up and take you where you want to go.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
How come no one is pointing out that this guy was being a douche- cutting in line and using the fact that he has kids to fuck over everyone else?
Could have been physically assaulted by one of Minneapolis' many Somalian cab drivers who consider it a religious duty to abuse, threaten and assault all infidels.
Go ahead, call the cops! I will show them why you called them, and they they will be hauling miss bitchy gate agent's ass into the crowbar hotel! Oh, and while were there, we will have the lawyer do a little dump all over Southwest *and* miss bitchy gate agent. You can be efficient, you can follow the rules, you don't have to be friendly, but you shouldn't be rude, angry or bitchy. Crapping on customers "because I can" will get you seeing less business in half a heartbeat. I could see online forums where Southwest gets the message "dump-the-bitch-or-no-more-of-my-business.com". A little calculus and suddenly ticket agents get real friendly real fast.
Guy should have been banned from flying SW forever. I hate douches like that who think they're entitled to bend rules just for them. Not to mention, tweeting in all caps clearly shows how pathetic of a loser he is.
There are no "frequent flyer privileges" on Southwest that I know of. You can upgrade to Business Select for $20 or so a flight. Which is what he did for his ticket but not his kids, and then tried to work the system and was called out on it.
airports are reduced rights zones after 9/11
And the airline/pilot/attendant's right to ask you to leave... ?
... and have never had a problem. It's almost as if there is a part of this story missing. The part about the passenger's actions before this occurred. Just like most humans, treat a gate agent politely, be respectful, and don't be a jerk and it is amazing how it can be reciprocated.
Get a lawyer dude.
This is how we complain and get satisfaction in 2014. SW, can suck it.
As a frequent business traveler with SWA, it sounds like the gate agent was just following policies. If you're traveling with your family and want to board together, you can either pay for business select tickets (giving you A1-15 boarding cards), or you can board with the last member of your party. Holding an A-list boarding card does not mean you get to bring your whole family with you. I can't speak to the behaviors of the man or the gate agent, but as a fellow traveler, it's pretty frustrating when people don't follow the airline's policies. I'm sure this is doubly true for passengers that pay extra for Business Select or Early Bird boarding options, only to get bumped further back by parents insisting on special treatment.
That said, the SWA response sounds a little crazy.
Maybe he put "@SouthwestAir" in his tweet.
The thought police in action
it seems we have only one side of this. are we quite sure he wasn't abusive, threatening, or aggressive? "Our decision was not based solely on a customer's tweet" says the airline.
I think the take-away from this story is this guy had the gaul to try and board ahead of time with his kids who were clearly not allowed to board early and then threw a temper tantrum when he couldn't have his way.
I think the take-away from this story is this guy had the gaul to try and board ahead of time with his kids who were clearly not allowed to board early and then threw a temper tantrum when he couldn't have his way.
The guy was already on the plane and the situation was over. Would you really act out some sort of revenge fantasy because you the guy hurt your feelings?
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Anyone heard this one before? What is that from?
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Thats illegal!!! how can Southwest call in the police for that type of Tweet? the Police do not serve companies, they serve THE PEOPLE!
America, you fucking suck....
It's Tourette Syndrome, not turret. http://www.tsa-usa.org/ http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tourette/detail_tourette.htm
Sounds like something from a communist country. This is the USA? What did veterans serve this country for? This makes their service a joke.
Oh all you over privileged, entitled people.... of course you saw nothing wrong with him bending the rules because he'd "done it before" . Get over yourselves, follow the rules of boarding like everyone else.
how do companies find out who is tweeting? what sort of people use their real names/identities on twitter!?
"Our decision was not based solely on a customer's tweet,"
So, there.
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big a douche bag the guy is, either he's a threat or he's not. There should be no negotiating whether he's a real threat. Anything else is just BS posturing.
I'm thinking it should worry you that SW has the means to monitor passengers communications, and how they're using that info. Regardless of whether
how big an AHat their customers are. It does beg the question as to whether were he a model passenger and tweeted the same remarks, would he be in the same predicament? (pun intended)
We really don't know what "really" happened, and can only surmise. Were I to play that game, I'd expect that either the customer really didn't like the tone in which the policy was delivered, and probably relayed this displeasure. Having two relatives that are flight attendants, I will tell you that the majority of people who cause real issues on a plane start small, and work themselves up to a apoplectic fit of rage which may or may not include violence. SW flight attendants training is to not take their crap, and if they refuse to quietly smolder, get them off the plane.
As crappy as it is to use a plane to get from A to B these days regardless of the airline, flight attendants see this A LOT, and sadly, are usually quite good at spotting trouble. However, how one diffuses the situation, is key. Apparently, this was done horribly wrong. SW recognized this by offering to issue tickets, etc.
It certainly smells like neither party handled this correctly, but the lingering issue remains: Is SW monitoring passenger tweets? Was this data intercepted? If so, what other traffic are they monitoring?
You Sir have just encapsulated the entire purpose of the Internet.